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With that went the easy bow of a military man and the agile backward movement of an india-rubber ball. "Ulinka, this is Paul Ivanovitch," said the General, turning to his daughter. "He has just told me some interesting news namely, that our neighbour Tientietnikov is not altogether the fool we had at first thought him.
In fact, on noticing that Tientietnikov went in absorbedly for reading and for talking philosophy, the visitor said to himself, "No I had better begin at the other end," and proceeded first to feel his way among the servants of the establishment.
One circumstance which almost aroused Tientietnikov, which almost brought about a revolution in his character, was the fact that he came very near to falling in love. Yet even this resulted in nothing. Ten versts away there lived the general whom we have heard expressing himself in highly uncomplimentary terms concerning Tientietnikov.
That is to say, it was not long before Tientietnikov noticed that on the manorial lands, nothing prospered to the extent that it did on the peasants'. The manorial crops were sown in good time, and came up well, and every one appeared to work his best, so much so that Tientietnikov, who supervised the whole, frequently ordered mugs of vodka to be served out as a reward for the excellence of the labour performed.
I myself might have been of use to him, for not only do I maintain certain connections with St. Petersburg, but also " And the General left his sentence unfinished. Thirdly, a captain-superintendent of rural police happened to remark in the course of conversation: "To-morrow I must go and see Tientietnikov about his arrears."
But soon even this began to pall upon Tientietnikov, and he ceased altogether to visit his fields, or to do aught but shut himself up in his rooms, where he refused to receive even the bailiff when that functionary called with his reports.
The foregoing will give the reader a pretty clear idea of the manner in which it was possible for this man of thirty-three to waste his time. Clad constantly in slippers and a dressing-gown, Tientietnikov never went out, never indulged in any form of dissipation, and never walked upstairs.
And when poor Tientietnikov found himself unable to say more to her than just, "Get out of my sight, and may the Lord go with you!" the next item in the comedy would be that he would see her, even as she was leaving his gates, fall to contending with a neighbour for, say, the possession of a turnip, and dealing out slaps in the face such as even a strong, healthy man could scarcely have compassed!
Was there not disclosed in them the secret of his galling spiritual pain the fact that he had failed to order his life aright, to confirm the lofty aims with which he had started his course; the fact that, always poorly equipped with experience, he had failed to attain the better and the higher state, and there to strengthen himself for the overcoming of hindrances and obstacles; the fact that, dissolving like overheated metal, his bounteous store of superior instincts had failed to take the final tempering; the fact that the tutor of his boyhood, a man in a thousand, had prematurely died, and left to Tientietnikov no one who could restore to him the moral strength shattered by vacillation and the will power weakened by want of virility no one, in short, who could cry hearteningly to his soul "Forward!" the word for which the Russian of every degree, of every class, of every occupation, of every school of thought, is for ever hungering.
Thus, with great difficulty, and also with the help of his uncle's influence, young Tientietnikov at length succeeded in being posted to a Department.
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